Rome, Italy - Billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk said Saturday he hoped Europe and the US would agree to join in a free-trade zone, after Donald Trump unleashed heavy global trade tariffs.

Trump's sweeping tariffs announced earlier this week sent global stocks tumbling, worried allies, and raised the prospect of others – including potentially the European Union – raising tariffs themselves.

The EU, which faces a 20% tariff, has already vowed to retaliate in "a calm, carefully phased, unified way," EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said.

"I hope that the United States and Europe can establish a very close partnership," Musk said in a video address to a gathering of the Italian hard-right party La Liga.

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"I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America," he added in the video, posted on Musk's social media platform X by La Liga's leader, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

The billionaire said he was in favor of "more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America" for work.

"That has certainly been my advice to the president," he added, while reiterating his condemnation of what he saw as mass immigration.